EarthLink to collect more subscriber information

EarthLink on Wednesday confirmed that it will begin collecting more personal information about its subscribers in an effort to better market to them.

EarthLink's new policy will allow it to match information provided by its subscribers with more detailed information furnished by "major credit organizations," the company said. EarthLink will now collect information such as age, gender, education and marital status, on top of personal information such as name, address and credit card number.

By registering on a separate Web site, customers can choose not to have their information collected. EarthLink said it would not sell the information to third parties, nor will it share names and addresses.

The change, which went into effect Oct. 31, comes amid an overall update in the Atlanta-based Internet service provider's (ISP) privacy policy. Subscribers will be informed of the changes in the next 30 days, and the new policy will go into effect 30 days after a subscriber receives the notification e-mail.

Les Seagraves, EarthLink's chief privacy officer, said the changes were implemented so the company has "some idea about our customers and what types of products and services they would be interested in. We don't know a lot about our customers at this point," he said.

In addition, EarthLink has launched a Web page that consolidates all of its marketing preferences options. The ISP requires people to manually opt out of being contacted via e-mail and phone regarding products and services. The preferences do not change the opt-out requirement, but instead can be found in one location.

EarthLink doesn't sell customer e-mail addresses to third parties. However, it sends e-mail to its subscribers that contains product promotions from marketing partners.